“How you doing, Molly?” Jase asked, walking over to take her coat and grab a chip of his own.
“Better now that I’m here.”
Jase popped the chip into his mouth, coughed, and grabbed the bag, his face a mask of horror.
“Dill pickle? Jesus, if I were less of a man, I’d be spitting that shit in the sink.”
Molly laughed and called him a pussy. Which of course had Emily laughing too.
Then Molly was leaning against the wall beside the counter where Emily was assembling skewers of cheese squares, pickles, and a cooked shrimp for the Bloody Marys. “Those look awesome. I would’ve brought more beer, but that douche drank most of the twelve-pack I picked up yesterday.”
Brody’s head shot up, and his pan clanked against the burner. “Are you fucking kidding me? What did I tell you about him?”
For a moment Emily struggled to remember Molly’s relationship status, but thinking back, she couldn’t recall ever seeing her at a wedding without one of these guys. And at parties or when they ended up at the same club, well, Molly had always seemed part of the crowd rather than with anyone in particular.
“Yeah, yeah. He needs to go,” she agreed, accepting a drink from Emily with a wide smile. “And he will, just as soon as I find someone else to cover his rent.”
Jase and Brody spoke up together: “I’ll cover it.”
Which had Emily’s brows pushing high.
The guys exchanged a look and shrugged.
“Aww, you two. Thanks, but pass. I’ll handle my roommate myself.” And in case either of them had any ideas about pushing the topic, Molly gave them a look eerily reminiscent of one of her brother’s and added, “End of discussion.”
Wow. Molly had always struck her as pretty cool, but now Emily was really looking forward to getting to know her better.
* * *
The rest of the guys eventually straggled in, all of them far too polished in the art of wingmanship to show even a hint of surprise at Jase having invited her to join what she’d heard was a fairly closed group. They were welcoming, and the conversation and laughter never stopped.
“Any updates on Janice?” Max asked, returning with what had to be his sixth plate of food from the kitchen.
Holy cow, the guy could eat, but he didn’t have an ounce of fat on him.
Jase’s head rocked back, and he covered his stomach with his hand like he was suddenly sick. Emily sat up a little straighter.
“Nothing. I talked to her this morning—”
Molly held her skewer up, now down to only the cheese cube. “Wait, you made your secretary, who’s thirteen months pregnant, talk to you on a Sunday morning? There’s a special place in hell for you, mister.”
But then Jase was waving her off, giving her an annoyed, but not really, look before going on. “Okay, first, she called me,” he said, defending himself.
At which point, Emily cocked her head. “Your pregnant secretary calls you on Sunday mornings?”
Jase’s head snapped around to her and he put up a staying hand, warding off whatever unholy thought she’d had about this Janice.
“It’s not like that. We’ve been working together for years, and I care about her a lot. She’s thirty-five, this is her first baby, and she’s just—”
“She’s scary,” Molly cut in matter-of-factly. “I mean, I love her. But—”
“But she’s already six days past her due date, and I’m concerned for her. Like any boss would be.”
Emily felt something deep in her chest warm at the thought of Jase worrying over a pregnant woman.
This time, Max piped up. “I don’t know, man. I’m not sure just any boss would be quite as involved as you. How big is the binder these days?”
Jase flushed, and Emily sat straighter still. “Binder?”
Brody laughed and slapped Jase on the shoulder. “With all the safety reports Jase started printing out for her when he found out she was prego.”
Sean—who was apparently the grown-up of the group, the most reserved and polite by far—turned to her, a pitying look in his eyes. “He researched breast pumps.”
And that was when everyone in the room, Emily especially, fell apart.
* * *
The game was a nail-biter, going into overtime before the Hawks brought home the win. Emily had had a great time, never once feeling left out. The guys made it a point to include her, going to the trouble to give her the backstory whenever an insider joke came up—and there were dozens.
They grilled her about Jase in high school, and despite their past, she had more than enough cherished memories from those early days to share with the group. It was funny to think that these people had known Jase almost as long as she had. They’d all lived in the same dorm freshman year—except Molly, who was three years younger and hadn’t gone to college except to visit her brother at his. Apparently, she’d spent enough time there the school had been ready to start charging her rent. And while technically, Emily had known Jase longer, these friends knew him in a way she didn’t. They knew the guy he’d been and everything that had happened along the way to make him the man he’d become today.
They were lucky.
“Have fun?” Jase asked, coming up beside her as she loaded the remains of her cocktail bar back into her bag.
She smiled. “I did. Thank you for inviting me. You sure I can’t help clean up?”
“Nah.” He met her eyes, but then looked down to the floor and stuffed his hands in the pockets of his jeans. “But maybe we could all hang out like this again sometime? We play darts at Belfast on Wednesdays. And before you get all nervous that I’m trying to trick you into a date and planning to show up with flowers and a box of candy, Wednesday is friends’ night. We used to call it guys’ night, but then Molly got all pissy because she’d been tagging along since the start—and anyway, it’s not gender exclusive. Wednesday is for friends. Been that way since college.”
“And no way would you break that code.”
His mouth slanted into the smile that left Emily thinking thoughts that weren’t exclusively friendly.
“These guys would never let me live it down. Meet us there?”
As appealing as it was to believe that somehow she and Jase could become friends, especially after the afternoon she’d spent as part of that inner circle, the truth was it didn’t seem possible.
This time, she was the one to look away. “Maybe.”
* * *
When Jase walked back into the apartment, cleanup was in full swing. Brody was scrubbing out the sauté pan, Molly was on drying duty, and Sean was bagging up the garbage. Meanwhile, Max was reorganizing Jase’s refrigerator. Again.
“Thanks for waiting until she was gone,” Jase said, returning the platter Molly had just dried to the cabinet over the fridge. Yes, he was interested in more time with Emily, but he’d been worried about what would happen if she stayed. If somehow she’d ended up being the last one there. If they were alone, and the part of him still hungry for Emily in his bed got in the way of the part of him working to become her friend.
Based on what had happened at the club, Emily might not have minded. But once the sex was over, they’d be right back to her walking out of his place, thanking him for a good time—and PS, don’t bother calling.
That wasn’t what Jase wanted. Not anymore. And now that he’d admitted it to himself… Well, drastic measures were needed until all parts of him got in line.
“So Emily, huh?” Sean asked, propping a hip against the counter. “Molly said there was something going on with you two, but after Skolnic’s wedding, I thought she was full of shit.”
And with the audience gone, Sean had let his hair down.
“I told you so,” Molly sang quietly, the small smile playing at her lips making her look a hell of a lot sweeter than she actually was.
Jase grabbed the stack of plates next. “I know. And sorry for springing her on you. It’s just that she and I go back pretty far. And there’s some stuff I need to make up to her before I can—”
“Do her,” Max suggested, that too-serious face of his split into a mischievous grin.
Molly shook her head, muttering something about Max being the funniest guy she knew, earning a snort from Sean.
“Bite it, Max. It’s not like that… I mean, yeah, I’m into her.” What fool wouldn’t be? “But with all the crap we’ve been through, my first priority is proving to her that she can trust me. Showing her that we can be friends.”
Max closed the fridge and crossed his arms, the grin gone.
“So you’re trying to convince her she’s your friend, so she’ll trust you enough to let you nail her?”
Molly whistled out a breath and, eyeing Jase like he was a festering boil, mouthed “Douche bag.”
“Jesus, do you seriously think I’m trying to scam her into the sack? I want something with her. Something real.”
“You talking more real than what you had with Tiffany or Camila?” Brody asked, the look on his face no less disapproving than the others. “Because real usually implies lasting, Jase. Which isn’t exactly your MO. And Emily’s had enough of your shit.”
Jase got it. Tiffany and Camila were the last two women he’d dated, Tiffany before Skolnic’s wedding and Camila about three months before that. He’d had to work on Camila to go out with him. Something about his reputation preceding him, if memory served. He’d convinced her, but not by promising something he had no intention of delivering. He’d convinced her that what he was offering—all he’d been offering—was something she wouldn’t want to miss.
And when they’d broken it off—amicably, he might add—she’d told him he’d been right.
Tiffany? Well, he could still remember that slap landing across his cheek, but he’d known she was drama going in. He hadn’t offered her anything more than he had Camila, but somewhere along the way, Tiffany had gotten it into her head that he should have. Their parting hadn’t been quite so amicable. It happened.
Both were fairly representative of his relationships in general, but neither of them could be compared to what was happening with Emily. Nothing could.
He didn’t know why things were so different with her.
Why she pulled at the places other women couldn’t touch. But when he was with her, it wasn’t just about want. It was about need.
And whatever that pull was, it had already taken him beyond the limits he’d set for every other relationship he’d gone into. He was now in uncharted territory. He didn’t know where it was going to lead, but he knew he didn’t want to be there alone.
“She’s different.” That was all he could say. His only defense. Well, that and… “I invited her to Belfast on Wednesday.”
Silence.
The weird kind.
And then Molly clutched her hands together, her lips pinched between her teeth. Sean grunted, grabbed the sack of trash, and walked out to dump it. Max reopened the fridge and resumed his grumbling over the jelly being hidden behind the milk and what they were doing on the same shelf. And Brody… Brody stepped in close so the others couldn’t hear.
“No more fuckups with this one, Jase. She doesn’t need it.”
Okay, so they were good.
* * *
Wednesday night took its sweet time rolling around. The week was rough. Jase was worried about Janice, who still hadn’t had her baby and to his consternation had continued marching into the office each morning like she wasn’t walking around with a stomach so big and round it looked ready to pop. Only these days, that belly didn’t always look so round. This morning it had been disconcertingly off-center. A little oblong. And damn, was it hard.
He wanted her at home with her feet up and a nurse standing at the ready. A phone in her hand with Labor and Delivery set on speed dial.
But no. That wasn’t Janice.
So he’d spent the better part of his workweek hovering around his assistant, trying to come up with quality, on-the-spot lies to cover his actions. Because the hovering? She didn’t appreciate it. Just like she hadn’t appreciated the arugula salad he’d tried to get her to eat when he read it helped start labor. And she didn’t like the yoga ball he’d replaced her chair with for the same reason.
She’d disliked it so much that she’d all but shoved him into his office that afternoon, closed the door behind her, and then done the unthinkable.
“You brought this on yourself, Foster,” she’d hissed, pulling up her stretchy maternity shirt to just above her belly button. And that straining, mottled orb… Holy hell, there were some things a guy just couldn’t unsee.
No more yoga balls. Check.
The only thing that had gotten him through the day had been the idea of confessing his arugula sins to the one woman whose laugh might make the trauma go away.
But here he was at Belfast at quarter to ten, surrounded by friends who’d officially transitioned from upbeat assurances she’d be there to sympathetic looks mirroring what he already knew. She wouldn’t.
The only question now was what was he going to do about it?
Chapter 18
“Rafe, you know I love what you did here. It’s genius, like everything you touch,” Emily assured him, stroking an ego that was already on the brink of going supernova. “But for Basker Bourbon, we’re looking to work an edge in with the old-school feel. I think if we—”
“Emily?”
She turned to find Avi, her new intern, blushing at the threshold of the art director’s office, trying to keep her eyes from roving over the admittedly attractive man. She was failing. Miserably.
“What’s up?”
“Um, sorry to interrupt, but there’s a Jason Foster for you in the lobby.”
Emily bumped her knee on the edge of Rafe’s drafting table, then turned a heel navigating through the cluster of sleek, red club chairs.
“I’m coming,” she croaked, bending to rub her ankle. “Just have him wait in my office. I’ll be right there.”
Turning back to Rafe, she apologized for the interruption, finished her thought, and after some more heavy petting regarding his unparalleled talent, she started back through the maze of thirty-second-floor hallways toward certain…friction.
She should have called. Texted.
Something to let Jase know she wouldn’t be there last night. But she hadn’t really known herself until the back-and-forth indecision that had been eating her up since Sunday—and had her vacillating between standing at the door with her coat on and stalking back into her bedroom—eventually ate up all the hours of the evening. Doing nothing had made the decision for her. Because the night was over and she hadn’t gone.
It was for the best. Right?
Probably not, if Jase was sitting in her office.
Outside her door, she stopped and smoothed her skirt. Her hair. She took a breath and pressed a hand against the spot in her belly where the butterflies had started to build.
Shoot. That never ended well.
Pushing through the door with a confident smile, she braced for whatever was coming. Then froze when she found Jase kicked back in the chair across from her desk, a spread of sandwiches, chips, and sodas laid out in front of him.
“Thought you might be hungry,” he said by way of greeting with no indication of any feelings, hard or not, about the night before. “You free for a few?”
She looked over the spread and felt her stomach grumble.
Jase waved her to her desk. “Sit. Relax. It’s only from the deli around the corner from my building, not takeout from Spiaggia. Eat.”
“Friend food?” she asked quietly, her guilt over ignoring Jase’s offer of amity the night before making her squirm.
“Celebrat
ion food,” he corrected, then held up a couple of cookies she hadn’t seen as if they clarified things. “Janice had her baby at 3:01 this morning. Little monster’s a boy. Seven pounds, five ounces. Nineteen inches long.”
Emily rocked back in her chair, delight washing through her.
“Jase, you must be so proud,” she teased, warming at the smile she’d earned.
“Actually, I am.” And then he proceeded to tell her about the arugula salad he thought might have cost him his manhood yesterday, and then the text from Wayne, Janice’s husband, informing him that she’d actually brought it home with her and eaten it for dinner. Two hours later, they were in business.
Emily laughed until she was wiping tears from the corners of her eyes with her deli napkin. And Jase was sitting back in his chair wearing that sexy, satisfied grin on his face.
They talked a while more, and then Jase gathered the trash from their lunch before heading for the door. No last lingering look, no kiss good-bye, just a devastating grin, and as he walked out, a simple “See you around, Em.”
From behind her desk, she smiled and answered quietly, “That would be nice.”
* * *
Saturday morning, bleary-eyed and confused, Emily buzzed Jase up to her apartment, where he handed her a bottle of Gatorade and told her to get dressed. They were going for a run.
She wanted to take offense. To tell him where he could stick his electrolytes and demand to know where he got off showing up at her door like that. But they were looking at one of those freak sixty-five-degree March days, and a run sounded good. Almost as good as Jase looked in black-and-gray Under Armour that fit in a way that had her eyes going wide, despite the fact that she’d woken up approximately thirty-seven seconds before.
Plus, hard to scrounge up much outrage when she’d done almost the same thing to Lena the week before. Of course she’d had the good sense to bring doughnut holes instead of Gatorade, but still.
Ten minutes later, they were pounding down the lakefront path past Belmont Harbor, Jase bemoaning the shortcomings of his temporary assistant. By the time they reached North Avenue Beach, Emily had told him about the band she’d seen the night before and the girlfriend who’d been suspiciously absent for about thirty minutes following the show, only to return with a hickey the size of a quarter on her neck and a new appreciation for drummers’ rhythm.
May the Best Man Win Page 17